Product Description
There isn't any mystery about maestro Mike Holober, one of the most acclaimed and distinguished jazz composers, arrangers, & bandleaders of our era. He has enjoyed a long and successful career, in which he has served as the artistic director of the Gotham Jazz Orchestra and Westchester Jazz Orchestra; guest conductor of the HR Big Band and WDR Big Band in Germany; & Associate Director of the BMI Jazz Composer's Workshop, where he taught with Director Jim McNeely from 2007-2015. The brainchild of founding directors Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Albam, The BMI Jazz Composers Workshop is widely considered the \"finishing school\" for jazz orchestra writers, and today's jazz scene is heavily populated by composers who have honed their craft under Holober's tutelage. As arranger/conductor, Holober has written concert projects for a wide variety of artists ranging from Miguel Zenon, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Avishai Cohen, and Eli Degibri - representing the highest standard for a younger generation - to elder jazz masters such as Dr. Lonnie Smith and Al Foster. Over the course of his career he has written & conducted for a veritable Who's Who of jazz all-stars, including John Patitucci, Paquito D'Rivera, John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker, and many others. In addition, he has been awarded the prestigious Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant and serves as a full professor at the City College of New York, where he was also named the inaugural Stewart Z. Katz Professor of Humanities and the Arts in 2018. Holober is one of the most recognized jazz masters of our time. Fans have been yearning for him to create a new seminal opus, something that showcases Holober on his terms, without compunction, and very much as the leader of his musical enterprise. This double-disc album Hiding Out is an adventurous, risk-taking, well-crafted production that showcases the comprehensive virtuosity of Holober's superlative skills as a composer & arranger. Adventure. - Kabir Sehgal
Review
A single, repeated, bell-like tone, followed by a slow trickle of high-pitched woodwinds and muted brass, open the appropriately titled suite ''Flow'' from Mike Holober's new recording with his Gotham Jazz Orchestra a 17-piece, New York-based ensemble of the highest caliber. An idyllic scene gradually emerges as the minimalist music floats downstream and a simple melodic theme takes shape, then reemerges, shaded with a pleasantly dissonant harmony. The waters deepen from moment to moment, eventually opening up into a grand vista that continues to grow in complexity and gain momentum. The arrangement expands in breadth and the ensemble builds to dramatic crescendos, the tenor saxophone soloist soaring ever higher above the prevailing currents and occasional eddies below. The view only gets more spectacular from there, as the Hudson River-inspired motives of Holober's composition unfold over four movements.
Equally compelling, and inspired, is the five-part suite ''Hiding Out,'' another Holober composition that depicts the grandeur of the natural world (in this case, the landscapes surrounding Clearmont, Wyoming). Other highlights of this double album include the opening track, ''Jumble,'' a large-scale original work in one movement, and Holober's arrangement of the seldom-heard Jobim tune ''Caminhos Cruzados,'' showcasing trumpeter Marvin Stamm, one of nearly two dozen instrumental aces who contributed to Hiding Out.
In addition to being an esteemed composer, arranger and pianist, Holober is an avid outdoorsman whose passion for backpacking, canoeing and camping manages to find its way into everything he writes. It has been 10 years since the release of the Gotham City Jazz Orchestra's last album, Quake, as Holober has been immersed in projects with other major big bands (Germany's hr-Bigband and WDR Big Band, among others) and working as an educator (The City College of New York and the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop), not to mention playing plenty of sideman gigs. He hasn't exactly been ''hiding out,'' so to speak, but he certainly has been less visible as a leader, until now.
With the release of this long-anticipated, epic work, Holober has brought a profound artistic vision to bear on today's jazz scene and confirmed his standing as one of the finest modern composer/arrangers of our time, in the tradition of Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely.
Ed Enright --DownBeat Editors' Picks November 2019
An appropriate title for a cat that's been out of the studio for a decade. If you dig big band that's in the pocket but flashes a modern edge, this two disc set that makes up for lost time is really going to float your boat. With an assemblage of pros that show up to play, this textured, nuanced, big bold outing hits all the right notes. A sure handed modern master at handling all the big band necessities, Holober better not stay away so long again. Well done.
Chris Spector --Midwest Record review 07/10/19
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